Napa City Councilman Jim Krider says he won’t make you many promises, but neither will he tell you any lies.

Krider, who is running for a second term in November, cites modest accomplishments from his first four years at City Hall, with equally modest goals for the future.

“I promise I’ll do the best I can. I promise I’ll keep the public interest in mind. I promise to keep working on roads,” he said in an interview.

Krider vowed to fix the city’s streets when he ran in 2005, but reality got in the way, he said. Voters nixed a half-cent transportation sales tax a year later. The council endorsed another try this November, then the economy went south, making a tax measure seem futile, he said.

Krider said he agrees with residents about the condition of city streets. “Of course they’re hideous. I call it demolition by neglect,” he said. “I drive older cars. I rattle them to death.”

“I can’t fix anything until I have money in the bank,” said Krider, who pledged to keep working on a road tax that residents will accept.

Krider and Mark van Gorder are running for re-election at the Nov. 4 election. Their only challenger is Amber Martin, Napa Sentinel editor and daughter of former Napa City Councilman Harry Martin.

Councilwoman Juliana Inman describes Krider as “very pragmatic. He cuts to the chase. He tends to be conservative, which in most cases is a good thing.”

“I think Jim is exceptionally well-liked,” Councilman Peter Mott said. Krider is noteworthy for his “accessibility. He puts a lot of effort out to be involved in a lot of things.”

When Browns Valley neighbors fought to downsize the Carmel Drive subdivision, Krider arranged a meeting with the developer, said Cathy Felder, a neighborhood leader. The approved project ended up more to the neighborhood’s liking, she said.

Linda Cavalli, an organizer of the Foster Road neighborhood that fought annexation of Ghisletta family lands, credited Krider with doing independent fact-finding. He and van Gorder attended the neighborhood’s first organizational meeting, she said.

Making God laugh

When he was elected, Krider managed four Curves women’s fitness centers that he owned with his wife, Sharon. They have since sold or closed the centers, he said. Sharon works full-time as a nursing manager at the Kaiser clinic in Vallejo.

Krider now helps out with his grandchildren and devotes more time to his council duties, he said.

He is currently one of the city’s representatives on the Napa County Transportation and Planning Agency, serving as its chair, and represents Napa on the Napa flood district board of directors.

As someone whose legs were paralyzed in a 1982 accident at Sears Point raceway, Krider said public service is a way for him to justify having been spared death.

The accident changed his outlook on life, Krider said. “One way to make God laugh is to tell him your plans,” he said.

Drawing tourists

Krider, 58, said he is proud of the way downtown is developing with hotels and other tourist amenities. Tourism will be the city’s economic salvation, he said.

For too long tourists bypassed the city, Krider said. “There are millions of dollars literally going by our front door unless we provide tourists with a place to stay,” he said.

With three new hotels opening with the next few years, the monetary benefits should be evident late in his second term, Krider said.

Krider, who has lived in Napa since the 1970s, said he sympathized with people who mourn the old days. “Change is hard,” he said.

“When I got here we still had a good steel business at the south end of town, Mare Island (naval shipyard), clothing factories. All these things went away,” he said. Napa has to look to the future, he said.

Krider campaigned four years on a platform of preserving Napa’s quality of life by keeping growth in check. Although he is generally a yes vote, Krider said development had been kept under control, with only solid projects getting council approval.

“It may not seem that way, but our rate of growth is really, really slow,” Krider said. The city’s planning department says annual growth has been about 1 percent.

When he votes yes on a project, it has been vetted by the Planning Commission, usually with the developer making concessions to neighbors, Krider said.

Still, infill projects create neighborhood concerns, he said. “A lot of times I come home and second-guess myself. ‘Did I get that as right as I could?’” he said.

Two controversial subdivisions were narrowly approved in Browns Valley during Krider’s first term: the 72-home Hidden Hills project on Partrick Road and the 43-home Crossing at Browns Valley on Carmel Drive.

His yes votes were pragmatic ones, Krider said. “We got enough money from the builders to make a fire station happen,” he said.

Without developer seed money, the city would not have been in a position earlier this month to buy a future station site on Browns Valley Road, he said.

Krider was with the majority on a 3-2 council vote approving a Kimpton hotel on Solano Avenue. The two no votes wanted improvements to the Wine Country Avenue intersection first.

Krider said he was willing to accept Kimpton money to move the city closer to installing a traffic signal.

As it turned out, the developer pulled the plug on the Kimpton after a labor union sponsored a referendum to have voters decide the project’s fate.

Focus on affordability

The best decision he made in his first term was hiring City Manager Mike Parness, Krider said. Parness has the financial smarts to restore the city to fiscal health, he said.

His hardest decision was voting to eliminate city jobs when it seemed the city would be running a large deficit. “That was like firing a family member,” he said.

Ultimately, the firings proved unnecessary when the finance department issued more upbeat revenue numbers.

Critics say city wages and benefits are too high, but Krider said they are reasonable. “Employees are probably underpaid when compared to other municipalities. We have to have competitive wages to get good employees,” he said.

Krider said he is proud that Napa is becoming world-famous, but still retains its character. “No matter where you go, when you say Napa, people’s eyes light up. It doesn’t matter that we’re a regular old town,” he said.

Lack of affordable housing continues to be a major issue, but the city has limited influence on price, Krider said. If cities could dictate that every house be affordable, they would, he said.

Affordability is improved when government can offer subsidies or density bonuses, he said. It’s not helped when a city locks in its boundaries as Napa has and insists on slow growth, he said.

Krider is the father of two sons, one of whom lives in town. Four years ago his Napa son was a renter. Today he is the owner of a north Napa condo, he said.

Editor’s note: This is the second of four profiles of candidates running for office in the city of Napa in November. Sept. 19, Mark van Gorder; Sunday, Amber Martin; Monday: Jill Techel